But all these things are perhaps justly forgotten, and it is ungrateful to revive them from oblivion. The dust and dross of human conflict, the blood and the gall, the pain and the revenge—all this was laid aside like the athlete’s dress, and could not hide the glory of his naked strength and his iron endurance. The idleness and vanity of human admiration have vanished with the motley crowd, and have left us free to study the deeper beauty of human vigor with the sculptor, and the spiritual secrets of its hereditary origin with the poet. Thus Greek gymnastic, with all its defects—perhaps even with its absurdities—has done what has never been even the dream of its modern sister; it stimulated the greatest artists and the highest intellects in society, and through them ennobled and purified public taste and public morals. When we left Olympia, and began to ascend the course of the Alpheus, the valley narrowed to the broad bed of the stream. The way leads now along the shady slopes high over the river, now down in the sandy flats left bare in the summer season. There are curious zones of vegetation distinctly marked along the course of the valley. On the river bank, and in the little islands formed by the stream, are laurels, myrtles, and great plane-trees. On the steep and rocky slopes are thick coverts of mastich, arbutus, dwarf-holly, and other evergreens which love to clasp the rocks with their roots; and they are all knit together by great creeping plants, the wild vine, the convolvulus, and many that are new and nameless to the northern stranger. On the heights, rearing their great tops against the sky, are huge pine-trees, isolated and still tattered with the winter storms. “Ces adieux à l’Elide,” adds M. Beulé, “laissent une pure et vive impression. Rarement la nature se trouve en si parfaite harmonie avec les souvenirs. On dirait un théâtre éternel, toujours prêt pour les joies pacifiques, toujours paré pour les fêtes, et qui, depuis dix-huit siècles, attend ses acteurs qui ont disparu.” [Illustration: The Valley of the Alpheus] Travellers going from Olympia northward either go round by carriage through Elis to Patras—a drive of two days—or by Kalavryta to Megaspilion, and thence to Vostitza, thus avoiding the great Alps of Olonos (as Erymanthus is now called) and Chelmos, which are among the highest and most picturesque in Greece. After my last visit to Olympia (1884) I was so tantalized by the perpetual view of the snowy crest of Olonos, that I determined to attempt a new route, not known to any of the guide-books,(133) and cross over the mountain, as directly as I could, from Olympia to Patras. It was easy for me to carry out this plan, being accompanied by a young Greek antiquarian, M. Castroménos, and by Dr. Purgold from Olympia, who had travelled through most of Greece, but was as anxious as I was to try this new route.